Blue Coat Systems, Inc., the market leader in business assurance technology, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Solera Networks, the industry’s leading provider of big data security intelligence and analytics for advanced threat protection. The Solera DeepSee platform will add industry-leading security analytics and forensic capabilities to the Blue Coat product portfolio, delivering an end-to-end security solution that includes protection, remediation and governance and gives enterprises complete visibility into the content and context of advanced targeted attacks. The acquisition is expected to close within the next 30 days.

“Today’s approach to securing the enterprise is missing an essential element – the ability to defend, react and resolve security issues by efficiently mining a very large dataset of network history to gain previously unavailable insights. The future of the industry is moving beyond just blocking malware and stopping targeted attacks to also identifying and resolving the full scope of the attacks in real time,” said Greg Clark, CEO at Blue Coat Systems. “Retrospective capture and analytics are now an essential component of modern security architecture, and Solera has pioneered this field, creating a DVR for the network that records traffic and allows customers to easily mine that information.”

The combination of Solera’s real-time intelligence, security visibility and forensic capabilities and Blue Coat’s comprehensive Web-based threat intelligence capabilities now gives businesses the tools to proactively block threats and rapidly identify, respond to and recover from a data breach or incident.

Following the acquisition, these technologies will work together to leverage the industry’s most advanced root cause analysis capabilities and the network effect of 75 million users from over 15,000 customers worldwide, including 86 percent of the FORTUNE Global 500. Today, Blue Coat rates more than one billion Web requests per day. This comprehensive Web intelligence combined with the ability of Solera’s DeepSee software and appliances to provide an historic record of all network traffic will enable enterprises to efficiently identify and resolve the full scope of advanced threats.

Solera’s customers include organizations around the world in many market segments, including the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security and Defense, Hitachi, Qualcomm, Overstock.com, Parsons Corporation and Zions Bank. For these customers, Solera’s DeepSee platform helps defend against advanced persistent threats and targeted malware attacks.

“Solera is the go-to system in our network that provides real-time visibility of advanced threats and zero-day attacks, as well as post-event ‘look back’ to easily identify the root cause and material impact of security breaches,” said Ramin Safai, chief information security officer at Jefferies. “Integrating Solera’s security analytics and advanced threat protection capabilities with the comprehensive threat visibility Blue Coat provides will be invaluable in helping us automate our security infrastructure to better protect our business against APTs and targeted malware attacks.”

“Solera’s software acts like a security camera on the network, providing a detailed record of all packets, flows and files to detect and analyze the full scope of today’s advanced targeted attacks,” said Steve Shillingford, CEO at Solera Networks. “Along with the big data security analytics and intelligence needed to see zero-day threats and advanced cyberattacks in real-time, Solera DeepSee provides unmatched security forensics to help enterprises answer critical post-breach questions on the nature of the attack and how to prevent it in the future.”

Both Blue Coat and Solera will continue to embrace an open architecture to future proof the customer network. Solera partners with leading, best-of-breed vendors in the security space to gain additional threat intelligence and visibility into traffic. For example, to see and identify threats hidden in encrypted traffic, Solera integrated its DeepSea platform with SSL technology from Netronome, which Blue Coat acquired earlier this month.

Today, Blue Coat introduced its SSL Visibility appliance as part of its new Business Assurance Technology Resolution Center. This new appliance, which leverages the SSL technology acquired from Netronome, is already integrated with Solera’s DeepSee platform. Together, the two products give customers full forensic capabilities and visibility into all traffic on the network for rapid identification, analysis and remediation of threats hidden in encrypted traffic.

“Traditional security solutions are becoming obsolete against today’s advanced threats, as evidenced by constant stories announcing data breaches. Discovery and prevention of emerging threats has become one of the most critical priorities for C-level executives,” said Charles Kolodgy, research vice president, security at IDC. “Bringing together Solera’s innovative security analytics capabilities with Blue Coat’s comprehensive Web intelligence should allow customers to fully monitor and enforce countermeasures on networks constantly under attack.”

The Resolution Center is one of five technology centers that anchor Blue Coat Business Assurance Technology. Introduced today, Business Assurance Technology makes it possible for businesses and their employees, customers and partners to safely and easily use the best technologies, applications, devices and services in the world.

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Background information

Blue Coat Systems is the technology leader in Application Delivery Networking. It offers an Application Delivery Network Infrastructure that provides the visibility, acceleration and security required to optimize and secure the flow of information to any user, on any network, anywhere. This application intelligence enables enterprises to tightly align network investments with business requirements, speed decision making and secure business applications for long-term competitive advantage.

Blue Coat Systems is the technology leader in Application Delivery Networking. It offers an Application Delivery Network Infrastructure that provides the visibility, acceleration and security required to optimize and secure the flow of information to any user, on any network, anywhere. This application intelligence enables enterprises to tightly align network investments with business requirements, speed decision making and secure business applications for long-term competitive advantage.